Friday, 15 June 2012

Throughout history, bigoted - or just plain money-chasing - prohibitionists have always been happy to hang their particular campaign on whatever is popular at the time. It matters not to them how objectionable the bandwagon they join, they'll use it anyway.

For example, anti-alcohol campaigners of the early 20th century were very quick to talk up the threat of 'liquor-soaked blacks', on the hunt for white women to rape, in the Deep South of America to gain support.

Likewise, Hamilton Wright, an anti-opium zealot and darling of our very own British Medical Association of the time, followed this template to the letter by talking of "cocaine-crazed negroes" to sell his chosen grudge to a largely indifferent public. The fact that his stories were anecdotal at best and almost certainly embellished by hideous racism, seeing as cocaine use was mostly used by whites, was irrelevant.

It did the job and he wasn't bothered what other damage he caused by citing it.

I'm not sure why, or from what point in time, but I'm getting the feeling that the tide is starting to turn. The antis have been ramping up the rhetoric like there's no tomorrow, and like with the AGW scam, the general public are starting to get "anti-smoking fatigue".

When you read articles in the Mail, or the DT about smoking, like this one, and read the comments, there is a definite tipping of the balance, with the majority of commenters ("I don't smoke, but...") being sceptical about the whole anti approach.

They may well end up being their own worst enemies, blinded and driven by their zealotry as they are.

Even if so, the Anti Smoking Industry gets the vast majority of its money from taxpayers (fake-charity status) and pharmaceuticals and then create the fodder for anti-smoking hate campaigns which then lead to this, which if used by a different sort of extremist to promote their brand of hatred piggybacking on the anti-smoking hatred, then even if they do find money from smuggling tobacco, it was the Anti Smoking Industry that began the whole cycle in the first place by all its draconian undemocratically imposed bans on tobacco that resulted in opening up the doorway for increased smuggling in the first place. So in that regard, the Anti Smoking Industry can further be blamed, on top of creating hate and prejudiced based on the Fraud of Second Hand Smoke, also creating a black market condition for tobacco worldwide, a lot of it through undemocratic endorsement of the Tobacco Control "treaty" imposed by the unelected dictators at the UN. So I see the blame still goes back to the Anti Smoking Industry as the root of it.

You and me both, Nikasiman. Ever since the ban came in, pretty much every story pumped out by the anti-smoking industry gives the impression of a movement which is desperately trying to find a “new angle” in order to re-invent itself and restore itself to its glory days when it held the Government of the day in thrall and smokers throughout the country to ransom. And the lack of coverage of all of these new stories has, to me, been remarkable by its suddenness. It’s so sudden, in fact, that I’d almost be inclined to think that there have been directives from “on high” to all the major media outlets that anti-smoking stories are to be roundly ignored or, at most, given only the most limited of coverage.

I’ve said on several occasions that I feel in many ways – ironically – that the smoking ban was probably the worst thing to happen to the anti-smoking movement and that maybe, in order to ensure their longevity (and their continuing funds), they might have done better to have campaigned less hard for such a widespread indoor ban in order to leave themselves with something still to campaign for – because the further measures they did leave themselves (outdoor bans, bans in cars, bans in homes) are too far removed, in the public’s mind, for even supporters of the workplace/public indoor space ban to accept for the same reasons. In many ways, the anti-smoking movement is a classic example of the triumph of idealism over realism, and it’s ironic that if they’d taken at least a passing note of blogs like these, or of the comments made in them, prior to the ban’s implementation, they’d have seen this coming. But because they couldn’t bring themselves to accept that any objection might have any validity they’ve been well and truly hoist by their own petard.

Now we see them acting rather like a rejected lover desperately trying to win her beau back by wearing miniskirts and low-cut tops, when in reality said beau wouldn’t be interested in her if she was walking about as naked as the day she was born! If the anti-smoking industry had any pride it’d realise that in truth it’s had its day, it would pat itself on the back for “getting the ban in,” and then retire gracefully to the sidelines rather than humiliating itself through this rather rushed and undignified search for a “new angle” which doesn’t actually exist and which, to be brutally frank, not even supporters of the current ban would be particularly interested in any more, even if it did.

Simple solutionIf the prohibitionists,zealots,health fanatics condone and finance bigotry,incitement to hatred ,intolerance,apartheid,exclusion,aggression andprejudice, let us remind them ,such human failings can be used by both sides.When they open the Pandoras Box of "anything goes" so be it......................"ANYTHING GOES"......................................No Geneva Conventions,no regulations,no rule books,no compromise,no appeasement ,no armistice..........ALL OR NOTHING